The US Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a case examining whether an official in Louisiana violated the Constitution when she refused to issue a corrected birth certificate for a child adopted by an unmarried gay couple in New York.

The case was being closely followed because it raised legal issues that could be important in the escalating battle over state and federal government recognition of same-sex marriage.

The justices did not explain why they would not hear the case. The action leaves undisturbed a Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the Louisiana official’s refusal to issue a new birth certificate.

The state official cited a Louisiana policy that permits only married couples to adopt. The policy applies to all unmarried couples, regardless of a couple’s sexual orientation.

The issue arose when they sought to amend their son’s Louisiana birth certificate to record their names as the boy’s parents. Louisiana refused.

The issue in the case was whether the constitutional requirement that each state afford “full faith and credit” to judicial decisions in other states requires Louisiana officials to issue a corrected birth certificate despite the state’s policy prohibiting adoptions by couples who aren’t married.

Lawyers for the couple had asked the high court to embrace a broad reading of the Constitution’s full faith and credit clause that would have required Louisiana to jettison its policy in light of New York’s adoption decree. In addition, they argued that the clause empowered individuals to sue a state that fails to accommodate a sister-state’s decree.